Chang turns crime-prevention focus on primary schools

WESTERN BUREAU:

Stung by an increase in homicides and other gun-related crimes, National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang says his ministry will be seeking to disrupt the recruiting of young people into criminal gangs by targeting youngsters at the primary-school level and their family structure with preventative measures.

“My intention is to begin to look not at case management, but at family management, and the easiest way to access the family is through the mothers’ (antenatal health) clinics and the schools because, once you identify a child at this level, you can begin to identify the problems in the family and hopefully, we’ll solve them with other means,” said Chang.

Computers for students

Chang, the member of parliament for St James North Western, was speaking at a ceremony to hand over tablet and laptop computers to students from the Flankers Primary and Infant, Spot Valley High, and Salt Spring Primary schools along with some community-based organisations in the parish.

The presentation forms a part of the Local Partner Development (LPD) six-year project, which is being funded by United States Agency for International Development, through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, and which is implemented by FHI 360 programme.

According to Chang, the LPD’s FHI 360 initiative will become more effective in advancing collaborative, evidence-based youth crime and violence-prevention strategies. He added that civil-society organisations and key public- and private-sector partners will be better able to mobilise and sustain targeted youth crime-prevention efforts.

“We are here at the Flankers Primary and Infant School dealing with children that are being challenged and working with the primary schools around the community as opposed to waiting until you get the person committed,” said Chang.

“This exercise is designed to prevent the process of recruitment, where young men in particular, who feel like they have no stake in the society and who from primary schools are channelled on a route that sends them in the wrong direction,” he said.

The national security minister said that many of the country’s youth between the ages of 14 and 30 were being challenged and drifting into a life of crime, which at times turn deadly, because they are not able to access basic services provided by the State.

“This is one mechanism, but the other is to get the public services to these people in their communities. The services that were designed to assist these people, they are not getting it – education, quality healthcare, and the small but still important social safety net, which Government provides,” added Chang.

editorial@gleanerjm.com